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THE GOOD NEWS: Immunity to the coronavirus might last years, maybe even decades, according to a new study — the most hopeful look yet at this issue. 1/x https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.html
What this means: Most people have been infected (more than 90% or so) will be protected from reinfections for a very long time. And vaccines — which generally provide stronger, longer-lasting protection — may do even better. 2/x
What it also means: We probably will not need to vaccinate people every year as we had feared, giving us a fighting chance to contain this pandemic once vaccines are distributed. 3/x
The study is in a preprint but comes from excellent labs and was reviewed by other leaders. Also: it’s consistent with many other studies. For eg, survivors of SARS have functional T cells 17 years (and counting) after their infection, and this virus might be the same. 4/x
We had worried immunity might last only months because of reported reinfections with common cold coronaviruses but a) those seem uncommon and b) there are hints that may have more to do with genetic variation among those viruses — which isn’t relevant to the new virus. 5/x
The vast majority of people in the new study have robust levels of B cells (which can make antibodies as needed), as well as the types of T cells needed to fight the virus, and they show extremely slow rates of decline — consistent with many years of protection. 6/x
We don’t know exactly how long immunity will last because that depends on what levels of immune cells are needed. But monkey studies suggest a little bit of immunity seems to go a long way in the case of this virus. 7/x
Hope this brightens your week as it did mine
Feat. @profshanecrotty, @SetteLab, @VirusesImmunity, @deeptabhattacha, @JenGommerman Jeff Shaman & shoutout to @PepperMarion @Anto_Berto @trvrb whose work informed the piece https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.html
Feat. @profshanecrotty, @SetteLab, @VirusesImmunity, @deeptabhattacha, @JenGommerman Jeff Shaman & shoutout to @PepperMarion @Anto_Berto @trvrb whose work informed the piece https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.html
